How To Be A Feminist Ally to Sex Workers | The Life and Works of Olive Seraphim

This is something that was inspired by the diatribe of bullshit I have dealt with from non sex worker feminists as of late. To be honest, I have all but given up on feminism. Feminism doesn’t want me or people like me, people who refuse to allow them to appropriate our realities in support of their own ideology. Although I am very close to discarding this identity label altogether, I am hoping that at some point feminists are going to get their shit together about sex work and stop deliberately pushing us out when we won’t play by their rules. That is why I wrote this little ten point list. This is by no means comprehensive but hopefully it is a starting point for a true pro sex worker feminism, with space for us in it.

Identify yourself as a non sex-worker

This is such a common tactic of feminists who want to silence sex workers, but in addition to silencing us, it forces us to identify ourselves which puts us directly in harm’s way – just for wanting to make our voices heard in supposedly feminist spaces. What the women who do this fail to realize is that we are risking our relationships, our jobs (particularly if we are studying or work a second non-sex worker job) and even custody of our children for disclosing our sex worker status. This is not something that non-sex worker feminists need to face. The only reason a non-sex worker feminist has for not disclosing her status is that she wants to speak over those who actually have lived experience in sex work. A true feminist space must insist that everyone participating in a discussion about sex work identify as a non sex-worker upfront and allow actual sex workers to participate without their disclosing their status; the assumption being that unless one states that they are not a sex worker, they are. This allows us to participate while having our direct experience acknowledged without forcing us to actually out ourselves and risk having our whole lives ruined because of it.